Okaloosa County, Florida, February 14, 1995

On four limbs over a carpet of fallen leaves, I no longer linger in scattered confusion. I watch the oncoming traffic through thick protective glasses, insert the thick nail inside the washer, and place its tip on the target. The hammer in my right hand is ready to strike, force its body through thick asphalt on that white band that marks the edge between the world and the Earth. I look up again. The sun makes my eyes squint. The honk of a double-wide truck brings me to my feet. I ebb to the shoulder of the road for refuge. After the eighteen-wheeler passes, I return to perform my task. Forget red roses and imported chocolate; this is what I do–get on my knees and jump. I know the hard hat and the thin orange jacket that waves like a flag are not going to save me. If I think that I have no health insurance, that I have to work under the rain on Saint Valentine’s Day, through cold days, under the inclement weather of Florida’s hurricanes, listen to my runaway thoughts…that I stand in this foreign margin, speaking a fragmented tongue, stripped from my culture, my family, my people, my values, my music, my art, I would quiver when the rumbling voice of the poet, Pablo Neruda, thunder my core, asking me one more time “Why do leaves suicide when they feel yellow?”

I recall a single yellow leaf during the fall. In that vision, the cold wind blows over her weak body. The leaf clinches fiercely to a tree branch, as if having little manitas that hang on, refusing to let go. I used to see my face on every yellow leaf. Back then, that image shattered my soul. It does not matter anymore.

Like the yellow leaf, I ultimately surrender and fall with dignity aware of natural cycles. There is no end and no beginning. There is no separate reality, only a place where all parts, like pieces of a giant puzzle, coexist. The head of the nail reaches the paved surface. I stand on the Earth, observe the wound that curves into the horizon. I pick up the measuring wheel, set it to zero, spray a cross with red fluorescent paint on the white band every one hundred feet. Red splotches remind me of military tanks, machine guns, and pools of blood. I keep on walking, keep on moving. The moment is all I have.

Aloof, I measure the depth of the site, from the red cross to the litter catch point, the mowing line, the hedge, the swamp, a see-through chicken wire fence, or a solid stone wall. Wondering who will pay my student loans, I force a galvanized metal rod on the grass, string the area, and survey the green rectangle.

“One empty beer can, one smashed plastic soda bottle, one baby diaper with contents, one empty snack bag, one empty cigarette pack, one piece of tire, one plastic film canister, one cardboard fast-food box, one polystyrene cup.” The cassette recorder listens. With Zen steps, I continue the inventory, measure how much trash has trespass the planet of life by counting litter, categorizing items into 82 pre-established categories I memorized to get the job. 

Litter is a terrible human habit. To throw things out the window shows how little we care about our home. The solid waste research center hired me as a temporary worker to study litter and to measure how much it infringes prairies, farm fields, rolling hills, rivers, creeks, and swamps along rural roads.

As I carry on, men dressed in orange overalls widen the road. The Sheriff drives by, slows down, and stops. I watch him approach, knowing that I have an accent and that I missplaced my green card. 

“Ma’am are you with the crew?” He points at the prisoners paving the road and lifts his hat.

“No Sir,” I say and hand him my employer’s card. Humming Willy Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” I hope to distract his search.

“I’ll be darn. It’s about time someone picks up all this damn trash.”

“I’m not picking it up, Sir.”

“What in sweet heavens are you doing with it?”

“Counting it, Sir.”

“Say what? Are you telling me young lady that you’re counting the trash and not picking it up?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“So that’s where our tax money goes!”

“I suppose.”

“Stay out of the sun and keep an eye on those prisoners. A fine young woman ought to stay away from those birds of prey.”

“I will, Sir.”

After a long day, back aching and brain swelling from the humid heat, I step into a raggedy room in a roach motel, unroll a sleeping bag on top of a bed with sheets so thin they look like orphan home bedwear. I refuse to sleep with fleas and bed bugs. After a long shower, I lay in bed, stare at the ceiling crack and hear the voices of my island of sun; the place my soul chose to return; the sanctuary where my roots await. What is a tree without a strong root system? I think.

In this English-only land obsessed with border and walls, hopes, dreams and aspirations clipped, I grow under planned controls, like a bonsai. I urge to set root, grow tall like cypress threes do, wear my mantilla made of Spanish Moss and never surrender to the gooey drama of the melting pot.  Arbitrary laws should never colonize my thoughts!

But I am also content to live in this country and no longer yearn for a piece of land, a slice of pie, or a broken Dream. The fabricated world means much less than old bread crumbs.

As in dreams, I, la chica del charco, wake every day to the mural of injustices awaiting outside my door. Chin up, I grab the doorknob, walk through the portal, and navigate the tempest thoughts hollering like jackals. This cold, still life, this canvas that is a refugee’s life, overfed with boundaries and limits, sucks my strength like a vampire.  Barefoot, I step on the embers of going nowhere.

The Earth embraces me and provides the nourishment and sustenance needed to endure the journey. It does not ask stupid questions. Where ever my feet stand, I reclaim as the sacred land, knowing that the Earth does not belong to anyone, much less to those egoístas fixated with borderlands, always feeding disputes and drawing lines on the sand.

Next morning, my rubber boots step again over the brittle carpet of dry leaves. I discard Neruda’s vision at the sight of falling, yellow leaves, and keep on walking through winter storms towards the spring.

Note:

An earlier version of this creative non-fiction piece written after a long workday on San Valentine’s Day back in 1995 and titled “Yellow Leaves” was published under my former pen name, Maria de los Rios, in New to North America: Writing by U.S. Immigrants, their Children and Grandchildren, edited by Abby Bogomolny, Burning Bush Publications, Santa Cruz, California, Second Edition, 1997, pp. 154-156.

Credits:

The poem, “Por qué se suicidan las hojas cuando se sienten amarillas?” (Why do leaves kill themselves as soon as they feel yellow?) appears in Pablo Neruda’s Late and Posthumous Poems: 1968-1974, edited and translated by Ben Belitt. Bilingual Edition. Fundación Pablo Neruda. New York: Grove Press, 1988.